The cleaning of the wheels of a vehicle in a drive-through wash system has always been a difficult task to achieve automatically. While there have been numerous attempts to automatically wash vehicle wheels at a wheel cleaning station, the reliability and the cost of such devices have inhibited their general acceptance and usage in the industry. Today, most car washes have at least supplemented the washing of the vehicle wheels by manually spraying the vehicle wheels with a low pressure jet of water from a wand manipulated by one or more attendants.
Examples of prior art wheel washing devices are illustrated in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.:
______________________________________ 2,716,772 09/06/55 Cockrell 2,857,921 10/28/58 Hurst 3,191,207 06/29/65 VanBrakel 3,628,212 12/21/71 VanBrakel 3,667,486 06/06/72 Cole, et al 3,670,743 06/20/72 Moore 3,679,134 07/25/72 Nixon 4,550,464 11/05/85 Messing 4,830,033 05/16/89 Hanna ______________________________________
The Messing Patent, U.S. Pat No. 4,550,464, discloses a device which utilizes a rotating cleaning brush which engages and follows the wheel during a portion of its travel through a drive-through vehicle washing system. This device is expensive and very mechanically complicated and would have difficulty cleaning many of today's wire wheel covers or cast wheels having small deep recesses in which a brush could not effectively reach.
A more common approach utilized in the United States is to spray a low pressure, i.e. less than 100 PSI, stream of soapy water at the vehicle wheel in order to dislodge dirt and debris. The difficulty arises in effectively spraying the entire wheel surface in a relatively short segment of the drive-through washing system. As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,670,743, 3,667,486 and 3,679,134, Moore, Cole, et al and Nixon, respectively, others have attempted to utilize a spray of liquid to clean wheels which is provided by a plurality of longitudinally spaced apart and sequentially operated nozzles. In order to achieve coverage of the entire wheel circumference, the Nixon device mounts the liquid spray nozzles on rotating manifolds spaced transversely from the path of the vehicle.
The Hanna reference, U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,033, similarly shows a wheel washing apparatus using a series of sequentially activated nozzles. The Hanna nozzles provide a high pressure, 600 to 900 PSI, stream of liquid dispensed from a series of longitudinally spaced and sequentially activated nozzles. These nozzles are mounted atop a parallelogram type tire washing apparatus so that the nozzles can be spaced at a uniform distance from the vehicle wheel regardless of vehicle width.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,716,722, 3,191,207 and 3,628,212 cited above, disclose wheel washing systems which utilize pressurized liquid to clean the wheels of a vehicle while the wheels are being rotated at high speed on a series of rollers. By rotating the wheels at a speed faster than they would normally rotate passing through the drive-through vehicle wash, the wheels can be cleaned in a relatively short longitudinal distance. All three systems additionally longitudinally translate the manifolds supplying the liquid to the wheels to maintain the proper longitudinal alignment between the nozzles and the wheel. These three devices, along with the device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,857,921, Hurst, maintain the liquid manifold in proper longitudinal alignment with the vehicle wheel utilizing a roller follower which physically engages the leading edge of the wheel. The Hurst device additionally has a follower which engages the sidewall of the tire to enable the apparatus to be positioned transversely in uniform proximity to the vehicle wheel, respective of vehicle width.